The Spirule. How many of you .......

[Wombat]

..... used this instrument of torture?

Spirule

Instructions

I still have mine, along with my slide-rule - both never used in nearly 50 years. Thank goodness for those early Hewlett-Packard HP45 Scientific Calculators. I loved the Reverse Polish Notation HP used.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Never heard of the Spirule. Closest thing I've used is one of these:

To make this sort of thing:

I have a couple old slide rules. A very elegant and useful device for the times. Of course I was young with good eyesight then. Now, I'd need the one at the front of the algebra class I had in jr highschool. Big and yellow and 8 feet long. Of course our teacher had enough sense she had it hung from hooks above the blackboard.

Learned to use one reading Isaac Asimov's book from the local library when I was about 10.
https://www.amazon.com/Easy-Introduction-Slide-Rule/dp/0395065755

I also have one of these around here somewhere. Circular flight slide rule otherwise known as a flight computer.

The metal ones actually were less accurate than the plastic ones due to changes in shape from temperature effecting metal more than plastic.

 

[Wombat]

Never heard of the Spirule. Closest thing I've used is one of these:
View attachment 16390

To make this sort of thing:
View attachment 16391

I have a couple old slide rules. A very elegant and useful device for the times. Of course I was young with good eyesight then. Now, I'd need the one at the front of the algebra class I had in jr highschool. Big and yellow and 8 feet long. Of course our teacher had enough sense she had it hung from hooks above the blackboard.
View attachment 16393

Learned to use one reading Isaac Asimov's book from the local library when I was about 10.
https://www.amazon.com/Easy-Introduction-Slide-Rule/dp/0395065755

View attachment 16389

I also have one of these around here somewhere. Circular flight slide rule otherwise known as a flight computer.
View attachment 16392

The metal ones actually were less accurate than the plastic ones due to changes in shape from temperature effecting metal more than plastic.

That top of page device appears to be a very deluxe version of the Spirograph for making complex geometric patterns. I think @Cosmik would like that.

 

[restorer-john]

Thank goodness for those early Hewlett-Packard HP45 Scientific Calculators. I loved the Reverse Polish Notation HP used.

Have you tried to use the modern scientific calculators (Direct Algebraic Logic (DAL)/Visually Perfect Algebraic Method (VPAM))? I can't get used to the keying it in like you write it business!

I often pick up scientific calculators, but prefer the 1980s models I grew up with, where everything was backwards but I liked it. Does that make sense?

 

[restorer-john]

Thank goodness for those early Hewlett-Packard HP45 Scientific Calculators.

Hey Wombat, have I got something for you!

 

[bobhol]

I still have my slide rule in a box in my closet. Never used it once I got out of school. I also enjoyed using a RPN H-P calculator. An old Texas Instrument TI-30 is on my local craigslist for $10.

 

[Wombat]

Unfortunately I had a 'senior moment' in my youthful Uni. days and left my bag on a train. The HP45 was in it and I never saw it or my notes again. Devastating. My student-days poverty meant it was replaced at great sacrifice by an HP33E.
I still have it and I just found that the rechargeable battery pack(non-OEM) is readily available and cheap via Ebay. It will live again.

 

[solderdude]

At school I had to learn the slideruler. Even though every one already knew pocket calculators were going to be used.
I had a Casio FX80.
It still works on the original 1.5V AA cells till this day and have sometimes used the batteries to power something.
Incredible ... batteries are still NOT leaking either.
Only the sliding power switch is acting up now and then.

 

[Timbo2]

You guys do understand that we non engineers use RPN as well? The HP12C has a large following with financial professionals and most of HP’s other business calculators offer it as an alternative mode.

I’ve had a 12C at my desk for over two decades.

 

[FrantzM]

You are a bunch of not so young people .
In Engineering school we learned to use the slide rule and my father passed me his.. I quickly lost it becaue by then (late 70's) Electronic Calculators were all the rage ...
I dreamt of an HP-67 ... A French Magazine called "Science Et Vie" (Science and Life) ran a comparison between the TI-59 and I believe, the HP-67 and declared that the TI calculators (58 and 59) were faster and cheaper .. My father thus got me a TI-58C and it did perform every operation I needed and more when I was in engineering school.. Later I inherited the so-coveted TI-59 which by then I no longer needed since I was the very proud owner of a ... TRS-80.. I used the TI-58 for almost 10 years before it disappeared while moving to anew apartment ...

My cousins had the spirule but for some strange reasons never got my own ...

 

[Wombat]

You are a bunch of not so young people .

I dreamt of an HP-67 ... I had a TI-58C and it did perform every operation I needed and more when I was in engineering school.. Later I inherited the so-coveted TI-59 which by then I no longer needed since I was the very proud owner of a ... TRS-80.. I used the TI-58 for almost 10 years before it disappeared while moving to anew apartment ...
My cousins had the spirule but for some strange reasons never got my own ...

The HP67. Unobtanium to us mere mortals. Desire, desire. Sob, sob.

 

[Wombat]

The Slide Rule was invaluable. The odd difficult formula could be written in 'code' under the slide, in pencil, for exam reference and deleted easily. Limited space, limited advantage, but it reduced exam anxiety- a little.

 

[SoundAndMotion]

I also have one of these around here somewhere. Circular flight slide rule otherwise known as a flight computer.

Are you a pilot?

 

[DonH56]

I loved my old Spirograph!

After a fairly cheap TI calculator I bought an HP-41 for my last few years of college. It was hideously expensive to me but I decided to splurge on the best (at the time). One (and only one) of my EE professors had one, and my thermodynamics prof. They both helped me learn it and gave me some programs to play with. I had the keyboard memorized and would use it left-handed whilst writing with my right (I was born left-handed, but my parents switched me to right early in life, and I've been screwed up ever since ). I fixed it a few times but it finally died about ten years ago, LCD dead, and it is in a box somewhere. I bought a new HP-28. They moved the buttons around (!) and I never have spent the time to learn its features like I did my old 41, just haven't really needed to with ready access to PCs and all their software.

I have a few other old things around but most were sold/donated/lost over the years. No big collections for me.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Are you a pilot?

I've a private pilot license. Been some time since I've flown however.

 

[SIY]

I've a private pilot license. Been some time since I've flown however.

#metoo but just VFR. Ran out of money before I could get an instrument rating.

And I still have my flight calculator as well, stuck in a box somewhere.

 

[restorer-john]

nd I still have my flight calculator as well, stuck in a box somewhere.

Back in the late 80s, I was running a Tandy Electronics store, and we sold a lot of PC-8s (IIRC) to pilots- apparently there was a popular program for it at the time. I still have a few in boxes someplace, I bought really cheap after they were long discontinued. The TRS-80 pocket PC was long gone by then.

One I wrote a program for our home loan back in 1990 and the other I made a miniature database for Pioneer and Yamaha HiFi components for working out profit and commission (I'd moved to a local HiFi store for work). I loved those little things.